A Method Based on Patterns for Deriving Key Performance Indicators from Organizational Objectives

Organizational strategic alignment implies consistency among the organizational elements. Organizational objectives act as essential elements for leading such alignment. In addition, key performance indicators (KPIs) have demonstrated usefulness for assisting the strategic alignment allowing for a holistic control of the organization. Some approaches emphasizing objective-KPI relationships have been proposed; however, they lack of a fully appropriate method for treating organizational objectives, KPIs, and objective-KPI relationships. They exhibit some drawbacks in terms of ambiguity, stakeholder understandability, and subjectivity. In this paper, we propose a method for overcoming such drawbacks, by using preconceptual-schema-based organizational patterns as a way to operationalize organizational objectives in terms of the KPIs. So, a systematic method for deriving a set of candidate KPIs from a specific organizational objective is provided. In addition, we present a lab study in order to illustrate the main aspects of this proposal.